The Yankees utility players, Ronald
Torreyes (0.3 WAR), Tyler Wade (-0.1 WAR) and Neil Walker (-0.1 WAR) had a
combined WAR of .1 in 2018, and while they are all serviceable as utility
players or as players off the bench, this is an area where the Yankees could use
an upgrade in 2019.

So the Yankees have a major bullpen problem

Exactly three weeks ago today, on
June 14, the Yankees lost to the Angels 7-5. Andrelton Simmons
crushed a go ahead two-run homer off of Ronald Herrera to give the Angels the
win. I’m sure most of you remember this. However, even though that game was a
crushing loss, it wasn’t the end of the world. Okay, fine, the Yanks lost two
out of three to the Angels, and the bullpen struggled the entire series. Just a
slump, right? Wrong. Three weeks later, the bullpen is still in the midst of
that slump, the Yankees are 6-16 in their last 22 games, and it’s getting
harder and harder to watch as the season goes by.

Photo via Kathy Willens of AP

Earlier today, former trusted
reliever Dellin Betances walked FOUR Blue Jays in the span of five batters. In doing so he allowed the Jays to score the go ahead run, en route to a 7-6
victory. It was, by far, the worst outing Dellin has had this season, and
that’s saying a lot. The frustrating thing is that Dellin’s struggles pretty
much started when the team’s slump started. On June 21, he had a
0.40 ERA; one earned run allowed in 22.1 innings. He was lights out. However,
let’s take a look at some of his more recent outings:

June 22: 0.2 IP, two earned runs,
one walk

June 27: 0.2 IP, two earned runs,
two walks, one hit, plus a blown save and a loss

July 1: 0.2 IP, four earned runs,
three walks, one bomb by Evan Gattis, another blown save and loss

July 5: 0.1 IP, one earned run,
four walks, another blown save and loss

All in all, since June 21,
which was two weeks ago today, Dellin has allowed NINE earned runs in 4.2
innings, to go with 12 walks. 12 walks in 4.2 innings! That’s 2.57 per inning, and
23.13 per nine innings. Yeesh. You can’t get much worse than that. He’s always
had some control issues, but they’ve never even been close to this bad before. What’s
going on?

This is just my opinion, but a lot
of his problems could be stemming from the fact that before the slump, it was
rare that Dellin would actually pitch. When Aroldis Chapman was placed on the
DL on May 14, Dellin assumed the closer role. He was reinstated on
June 18. In that span of time, Dellin threw a TOTAL of ten innings
spread across ten outings. The Yankees played 34 games while Chapman was on the
DL, and Dellin pitched in just ten of them. That definitely did not help his
command at all. Pitchers in general need to pitch on a regular basis. A pitcher
like Dellin is used to throwing about 20 pitches a game every other game or so,
or at least that has been his usage the last few years. Switching from that to
twice a week takes a toll on your command, and it’s starting to show now.

Betances isn’t the Yankees only
problem in the bullpen, however. Chapman is another case, and he hasn’t looked
himself pretty much the entire year. Ever since April 26, the game
where he almost blew a 3-0 lead at Fenway, Chapman has pitched 12.1 innings and
has given up eight earned runs, which is good for a 5.84 ERA. Of course, there
was his month long DL stint mixed in there, but still, even after coming off of
the DL, he’s pitched six innings and allowed three earned runs. He hasn’t been
as awful as Betances, but he’s just not as trustworthy as he used to be.
Batters just aren’t fooled as much by his fastball anymore, and are finding it
easier to foul it off. Plus, Chapman has never had good control of his offspeed
pitches, so if he doesn’t have control of them he’s essentially a fastball
pitcher. He needs to figure out a new game plan in order to become the lethal
closer he once was.

Photo via Caylor Arnold of USA Today Sports

But again, Betances and Chapman
aren’t the only weak links in the bullpen. Tyler Clippard has been giving up extra
base hits left and right for the past month (although he’s looked better
recently). Jonathan Holder showed that his early season success was mostly a
fluke, before he was optioned to AAA. The list goes on. Since June 14, the
magical three-week mark of this Yankees slump, the bullpen has blown SIX of the
22 games played. If the Yankees win just four of those, this season is entirely
different. True, there have been multiple injuries to key players, along with
underperformance from a few starting pitchers (looking at you, Michael Pineda), but the
main culprit of this recent slide has been the bullpen. Chad Green has been the lone bright spot the
past month or so, and he can’t do this alone.

Stay tuned for more on the bullpen,
as fellow BBB writer Matt Luzzi will discuss options the Yankees could turn to
in order to reverse this slide. The Yankees aren’t out of the playoff hunt, by
any means. But as long as the bullpen is this big of a weakness, that might
change soon.

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The scene was set for the
young budding Bomber squad last fall after finishing their season a game away
from a World Series berth. They were the team that arrived a year too early,
and another deep playoff run would be the goal, but then an old friend threw a
wrench in those plans. Derek Jeter put gargantuan slugger Giancarlo Stanton on
the market, and Stanton dictated his transfer with a full no-trade clause. The
Giants and Cardinals among others threw their name into the ring, but who did
he choose? The Yankees and Dodgers, it seemed to be a battle of baseballs
powerhouses, but the Yankees had an advantage over their former neighbors,
payroll flexibility. They were able to use this into an absolute steal of the
reigning NL MVP, and the Yankees were thrust into a world series or bust year.
The season was historic, they set the season home run record without Gary
Sanchez, Didi Gregorius, Greg Bird, and Aaron Judge for most if not all of the
year, but it ended in a bust at the hands of…

The
speculation started during the regular season, even prior to his trade from the
Baltimore Orioles to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Where would Manny Machado go upon
his free agency at the end of the 2018 regular season? And, with that, which
teams would be knocking on his door? No
sooner did the Yankees’ regular season come to a close after their fated ending
in the American League Division Series, the talks of Machado coming to the
Bronx took off as though pushed by a speeding 4 Train behind Yankee Stadium. The
truth of the matter is that the rumors started even prior to Machado’s free
agency being on the horizon -- they started
at the trade deadline.

Yankee fans are left with more questions than answers following Clint Frazier’s injury riddled 2018. Frazier suffered through concussion symptoms throughout his 2018 campaign, which saw him appear in 69 games between the minors and the big leagues. Now, Yankees fans wonder what 2019 will hold for the 24 year-old.

Miguel Andujar’s 2018
arrival in the big leagues on April 1st had been much anticipated by Yankee
fans and we were rewarded with a Rookie of the Year performance by one of the
most exciting players in all of Major League Baseball.

Corey Kluber is the difference
maker and impact arm the Yankees need atop their rotation. In 2017 and
2018, Yankee fans wished ace-like status on Luis Severino, but his
inconsistencies have left him just short of owning the name. Kluber, 32,
has been the definition of consistent for the Cleveland Indians, winning 18+
games four out of the last five years and winning 20 games in 2018 for the
first time in his career. Kluber has posted an ERA below 3.50 every season
since 2014, and has struck out at least 220 hitters in the same span. Kluber
keeps getting better, and is not showing any signs of regression. Kluber is an
ace, the ace the Yankees need.

There’s
no easy way to answer this question. Or, rather, there’s no one answer. The
surrounding factors change, creating different situations and, as such,
different fits -- both from a financial and from a team standpoint. A case can
be made to bring back either of these free agents, or both of them, or…
neither. But it’s almost impossible to make a blanket answer that fits in every
possible scenario.

It
felt like a shoe-in. So much so, in fact, that I advocated
for what I thought was the inevitable all the way back in September, before the
BBWAA even announced the nominees for American League Rookie of the Year.

First acquired in a relatively
small-time, 40-man sell-off move around this time last year that sent 1B
Garrett Cooper and LHP Caleb Smith to Miami, Michael King was seen as a young
right hander with promise, but one still years away from making any significant
Major League impact.At the time, the
important part of that trade was the $250,000 international bonus pool money
Miami included, which we all thought was to be used on Shohei Ohtani.Ohtani, obviously, never ended up in the Bronx
and will not pitch at all in 2019 after undergoing offseason Tommy John
Surgery.

Flashback to July 3rd -
the Mariners had just won their eighth consecutive game, putting them 20 games
above .500 and in possession of the third-best record in baseball. Everything
was going right in Seattle, and it surely seemed as if the M’s infamous 17-year
playoff drought would finally come to an end. Just two and a half months later
on September 22nd, the Mariners were eliminated from playoff contention,
following a dreadful summer slump and the concurrent surge of the
division-rival Athletics.

I
cannot count the number of times I tweeted about the Yankees and their problem
with RISP and situational offense over the course of the 2018 season. Of
course, the Yankees won 100 games on the regular season, and that statistic is
nothing to sniff at. They also claimed the single-season home run record. And
that’s great.